Thursday, August 13, 2009

27 Things was worth the time and effort. There was a long hiatus for me in July...however, I caught up none the less due to the extened deadline. What I think was the best about going through the lessons, is the discipline of going step by step, and not skimming the surface, and only understanding these tools on a superfical level. I was familar with all the tools, but it was about time I applied myself to having more interaction with them. I am surprised at myself that I did not take advantage of Podcasts sooner. I would occasionally listen to one or two, but did not search for a variety of Podcasts. With some of the exercises, I started to get too fussy, and had to "let go"! Key word: Balance. I am glad that 27 Things was initiated, because not only will it help me at my job, but also my personal life, and goal for Life Long Learning. ¡Gracias!

I completed three Spanish lessons from Mango: Learning Language Online. I actually had fun. I took Spanish about 15 years ago! I actually remembered some. I wish Mango had Finnish lessons, which was the first language I spoke. My parents were born in Finland, and I was born in beautiful Berkeley, CA.Learning a language from the computer is easier compared to listening to a cd and holding a work book. With the computer, you control the visuals and auditory with one mouse click. With a workbook and cd, you have to hold the book plus worry about pushing the pause button on a cd player. I also like the "flash card" approach on the computer when learning a language.

I signed up with Podcast.com, and subscribed to Librarian Live, NPR: Fresh Air, and Women's Hour. I wonder why I stayed in the dark with this resource. I was missing out! I like that I can listen to short or long podcasts about many different subjects from experts. I am all over the map with how many different podcasts I plan on listening too.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Ok, I could not resist this "superficial" web tool. HairMixer is something I know teen gals would love, and probably a lot of women. I think some men would get a kick at it. You can cut and paste your face onto a celebrity photo, and the final touch-ups makes the photo look realistic and professional. You get to see the finished look on a supposed magazine cover too. I remember seeing this type of application as a cd-rom, which had more advanced capabilities with choosing specific hair color & styles, and some hair salons have computerized hairstyle matches for their customers. I think this is a great free tool, and fun for a lot of people. People who like to make treasure maps would find this handy. For example, someone trying to loose weight can put their photo on the face of someone with a body they want, to inspire them to exercise and eat healthy. As many psychology and spiritual books (and The Secret) say: Visualize (see) your goal as already acheived, and it will manifest.

Monday, August 10, 2009

I have downloaded music from the SPL catalog before, and practiced once downloading an audiobook from a short training at Central that Antonio G. led, but did not transfer the audio to my MP3 player. I thought it was going to be complicated today, when I transferred a downloaded audiobook to my MP3 player, but it was pretty straight forward. I downloaded Vocal Awareness: How to Discover, Nurture and Project Your NaturalVoice by Arthur Joseph, and transerred to my MP3 player with relative ease. I tested it, and all is there. Will listen to it probably throughout the week. After I finish, I will have a powerful voice that will demand respect. :-)

YouTube is fun to browse, especially if you are looking for people you have known from the past. I knew a singer, and found past footages of his performances. I like that you can type "librarian" and get some pretty humorous videos. I like to view animation from unknown artists, and they have a slew of them there. I found some pretty good turtorials too. I cannot think of anything I dislike about YouTube. I wonder if their is someway to have the video constantly repeat itself, without always having to click on the "Replay" button after the video ends. I looked around the site to see if it is possible, but no luck.

The video I choose to link to my blog is Genealogy or Looking For One's Own Peeps, from the Birmingham Public Library. I love any stories about Peeps and especially Peeps at the library. I remember a while back, their was a funny "Peeps Research" on SPLAT, that had a string of photos showing the Peeps adventure at the library, from the Office of Fluffy Research, Staley Library, Millikin University. I wanted to see if the cute little Peeps made it to the big screen! Looks like the two in the video below got a break! They will inspire more Peeps to follow their sugary steps. Oh, and the background music is very charming.

I really dig Zoho. Especially Zoho Show. You can work on a presentation, and if you are working with others for a group presentation (like I will be doing soon), you can share slides, and you can even conduct a presentation live using Zoho. Such a nice little package, with added web 2.0 tools plus all or most of Microsoft Office applications. They even have a Zoho Poll where people can vote for what idea or whatever they like best! Really neat. When I was using Zoho Sheet, which is like Excel, Writer (Word) I though it was more fun than typing from Microsoft...I don't understand it. On Writer, it is helpful that a window comes up frequently to remind you to SAVE your document, by asking you to "Enter a Document Name". There was one document that I did not want to save, which caused the pop-up to recur every couple of minutes asking for a document name, which started to annoy me. However, I had fun playing with this multi-purpose web tool. What a giant.

Thank you for visiting our library, and donating up-o-date medical and health books to the Central Library. We always accept donations, and are appreciative that you were willing to donate expensive serial reference books, we did not have the funds to purchase ourselves. You have truly contributed to the library and community.

What a perfect name, "Sandbox" for people to experiment with Wiki. I am very excited about using Wiki for the Sacramento Public Library. I coordinate the online and print Research Guides at Central, and one librarian commented that it would be nice if she sould add an author, or other info. to an existing online research guide. I think that would be great if all the librarians can update the research guides and add to it. One thing is for sure, we need to remind customers that they exist on the SPL website!